1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electronic locking system to secure consumable items in an image forming device, and particularly to an electronic locking system for a media tray to secure media sheets in an image forming device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming devices generally use consumable items like toner, media sheets, etc., to execute printing. The image forming device generally includes containers to hold the consumable items, e.g., the image forming device includes a media tray to hold media sheets. The consumable item may include valuable media sheets like doctors' prescriptions, bankers' bearer bonds, etc. As can be seen, it is necessary to securely maintain such valuable media sheets inside the image forming device, so as to prevent the media sheets from being improperly used. Even rather modestly valuable consumable material such as toner or ink, when used in an environment in which a relatively large number of people have access to the consumable material, may need to be secured so as to prevent their theft.
A mechanical locking system is well known in the art for locking the media trays. In prior mechanical locking systems, a mechanical key is used to lock the media tray within the image forming device. However, it may be impractical for one user to carry the mechanical key for each and every media tray. Further, if any of the mechanical keys are lost, the manufacturer has to make a new serialized key. The time consumed in making the new serialized key may cause an unnecessary interruption in printing. Moreover, an unlocked media tray may be easily opened at an inopportune time, e.g., while the image forming device is printing, which generally causes paper jams.
It would therefore be desirable to provide an effective locking system that obviates the above-mentioned problems.